This invention relates to safety deposit boxes, and to doors for safety deposit boxes.
Safety deposit boxes have long been standard storage devices in banks, wherein bank patrons can store valuable papers, jewelry, heirlooms and the like. Such boxes conventionally include columns and rows of compartments, access to which is controlled by doors having locking devices to assure access only to duly authorized persons. Although in the past safety deposit boxes and the doors therefore were constructed of polished, hardened or stainless steel plate because of the great strength of such metal plate, the cost of the metal plate, the cost of constructing the boxes and doors from the plate, the difficulties in transporting the heavy components of plate boxes and doors, and the costly polishing and maintenance of steel plate, have led to the search for less costly safety deposit boxes and doors. The search has been aimed at safety deposit boxes and doors which are easier and faster to construct and maintain, use inexpensive materials, and require a lower degree of construction skill--while not compromising the security of the box and door.
Thus, a modular safety deposit box is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,554. This patent describes a safety deposit box system having a casing and a door frame attachable to the forward end of the casing. One size casing can be used for various sizes of boxes, and an optional vertical divider defines the size of the boxes in the casing. When the casing is to house a pair of columns of boxes, the vertical divider is included in the casing and a vertical center post is attached in the door frame. This vertical divider has a rearwardly facing vertical groove for receiving the forward edge of the vertical divider. The door frame is riveted to the casing and the centerpost is riveted to the vertical divider. A central hinge post is riveted to the center post for receiving the doors which open in a butterfly fashion. One of the objectives of the foregoing construction was to provide a safety box system having a door frame which could be pre-assembled with a number of access parts corresponding to the number of boxes in the casing for subsequent attachment to the casing at the installation site.
Although the foregoing modular safety box system may have provided certain features enabling the partial pre-assembly of the unit for subsequent final assembly at the installation site, there are certain characteristics of that system which render it vulnerable to improper access. Moreover, it does require certain parts which could be advantageously eliminated for reasons of economy and security. Additionally, it requires welding in some places which add labor costs to its fabrication, detract from the effectiveness and appearance of the system, and identify it as a system made of components other than steel plate which could tempt a thief to try to compromise the system. More specifically, the door frame of the system is riveted to the casing and the center post is riveted to the vertical divider. If the rivets connecting the centerpost to the divider are omitted, the rest of the system can nonetheless be assembled without the omission of the rivets being readily apparent. In this event, a thief would be able to remove the rivets securing the frame to the casing and then remove the frame with all of the doors to the respective boxes in the casing. Moreover, the door frame assembly could then be replaced on the casing to hide the break in. The foregoing system further requires the centerpost in the door frame as a support member for the hinge post for the butterfly doors. The elimination of this part, and of the labor costs associated with assembling it in the door frame, would be economically advantageous. Additionally, the doors of the preceding system are mounted on the hinge post with pop rivets. It is possible for a person to rightfully (or improperly) open one door, remove the pop rivets and thus gain access to the adjacent box. Thus, it would be very desirable to provide an improved modular safety deposit box system which avoids the foregoing shortcomings of previous attempts to develop such constructions.
Doors for safety deposit boxes are well known in the art, but for various reasons relating to their cost, effectiveness and complexity, they suffer from a variety of shortcomings. For many years, conventional safety deposit box doors were constructed from solid carbon steel or other plate to provide abundant security against unauthorized access through the door to the box. Although fulfilling this goal, such doors were expensive because of material costs and because of the long fabrication time and attendant labor costs. Moreover, carbon steel doors require frequent hand polishing for aesthetic purposes. Stainless steel doors do not require polishing, but their construction costs are very high.
Efforts have been made to develop less costly safety deposit box doors than the foregoing steel doors. If such replacements are developed which are more vulnerable than steel doors, it is generally desirable that the replacements have the appearance of the rugged steel doors. Single piece die cast doors are known in the art. These generally consist of flat plates with inward facing flanges. Although relatively inexpensive, such door construction are not entirely satisfactory. The forward face of the door must be polished or painted to give it the desired appearance. Moreover, the true construction of the door becomes apparent when it is opened and its thin wall can be seen. Therefore, proposals have been made for attaching a flat sheet on the inside of die cast and other non-plate safety deposit doors to give the doors the appearance of a steel plate construction. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,837,299 discloses a safe deposit box assembly having a hollow door made of two metal sheets having marginal flanges, the sheets being welded together at the flanges to form a hollow door and then subsequently ground down. The welding and grinding steps are relatively expensive. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,871,283 and 3,918,371 describe clam shell or butterfly type safe deposit box door constructions where a central hinge for a pair of doors can be mounted on a vertical wall member without the use of fasteners. A drawback of the construction of the '283 device is that commonly hinged pairs of doors can be removed from the vertical wall member when both doors are open. The other patent eliminates this problem by preventing one door from opening if its companion door is already open, this also being an inconvenience. The doors themselves include front and rear cast plates which are screwed together by means of aligned tapped sockets. These apparatuses are also relatively costly to construct. They do not have the appearance of steel doors.